J.J. Barea is older than I realized. 33? His shortness give the perception of youth, I guess. Looking at the list of dudes born in the same year as him, most of them are totally retired or looking pretty washed up. The only other ones who aren’t on an obvious downswing are J.J. Redick, maybe Marcin Gortat, and LeBron James who doesn’t count because he’s on 23 different types of steroids right now. Sorry Carmelo, but you like crap this year, you don’t get to be on the list.
Meanwhile, Barea is having his best scoring season as a Maverick, and the best passing season of his career. One injury could take that all away and send him out of the league immediately, but for now he’s still performing at a good level. I thought for sure this would be his career-high in assists, but it turns out he had a 25/14 game with the Timberwolves. That surprises me, because all I remember from his stint there is how much the fans disliked him. I don’t think they like any PG they get up there, really, when was the last time they had one that was well liked?
Barea looks much better in a Mavericks jersey anyway, even these weird-ass black-neon ones.